


Tomorrow

by ragdollrory



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post S6, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26084854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragdollrory/pseuds/ragdollrory
Summary: For a long time, white is all he remembers. Blinding light, striking anger, gaze-clouding tears, searing fear, fading memories… all of them are white.The white lasts so long, at least in his mind, that he doesn’t realize when he’s been pulled away.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20
Collections: Lotor Week 2020





	Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> A big big thank you to the lovely [Quantum](https://twitter.com/quantumabyssmal) for Beta'ing this story, and being a good sport about my dumb! 😂

For a long time, white is all he remembers. Blinding light, striking anger, gaze-clouding tears, searing fear, fading memories… all of them are white.

He doesn’t know how long it goes like that, floating in the in-between, slowly making himself smaller in Sincline’s cockpit. Making himself even more so in his mind. Trying to hold onto whatever remains of his past self amidst the white, questioning whether any of it is worth holding onto at all.

Time flows differently in the in between. Lotor has studied enough to know as much. A moment can stretch for years, a whole life be over in the blink of an eye. Entire galaxies can be born in the time it takes him to recite to himself the song Dayak taught him to learn the alphabet. It seems his brain has taken a liking to that one as of late. Maybe this means his time is finally coming? Perhaps he can go with the next star that vanishes out of sight in front of his eyes.

But he knows it’s not possible.

There, where the quintessence is as real and thick that he can extend his arm through Sincline’s broken glass and touch it- it slips smoothly through his fingers, cold and thick, not quite like Verusian silk, not exactly Khroll velvet either. It’s almost like milk, and at any other time, Lotor would’ve scoffed at his mind coming up with mediocre analogies about the universe and life being fed off of it, but right now he can’t.

Not with the realization that he’s too much a part of the white, that he’ll stay there forever. Suspended in nothing. Watching, waiting, wanting. Until even Sincline leaves him one day, and he has nothing left to form a pretense of safety and warmth. Of who he was.

The white lasts so long, at least in his mind, that he doesn’t realize when he’s been pulled away. He can’t tell the difference between the cold of the nothing and the cold of a sterile medical ward. Between the artificial lights delving into his eyes, and the time spent staring in terror at the infinite. He can’t tell the other voices apart from the small one that managed to stay in his mind until now.

There’s so much noise it soon turns into white noise, too. So much poking and prodding, and questioning, his mind shields itself and he too turns into a bleached version of himself. He doesn’t talk, because he can’t remember words, only that alphabet song. He doesn’t scream, because his throat has tired of it while in the nothing. He does nothing but wrap his arms around his legs, and wait for it to be over. Whatever  _ it _ even is anymore. He doesn’t know.

Time here is not easier to tell either. Not when all there is around him is a blur of shapes coming and going, words spoken so tight together that they blend into radio interference, and then nothing. Nothing when he’s left alone, not even Sincline for company. Sometimes he wonders about her, but then he forgets as soon as the thought filters through the soft cotton filling his brain.

There’s one that comes one day. He needs something, but he can’t tell what. Not with his mute voice, and not in his mind. The absence is devastating, carving a hole in his chest from the inside out, and clawing at his skin. It burns, yet he’s so cold. He’s silently whimpering, and he thinks he might even be crying. How long since he last did so? Where’s Sincline?

The one puts a hand on his shoulder then, and the presence of touch is so acute, a broken sob manages to push out of his lips, a flash of color sparks in his eyes.

The image is gone as soon as it comes, but he holds onto it with desperation. He must be holding onto their hand as well, because then the blur of people is back. His fingers are pried open, and the one is pulled away from him in a buzz of voices. A word stays though, and he replays it in his mind for however long.  _ Lotor. _

Time stretches then, as the pain in his chest grows worse, and the cold is so loud it turns him into the smallest version of himself yet.

He manages to scream again though, and that makes him feel better, even when he doesn’t know why, or what he’s screaming even. It feels important somehow.

Images start appearing in his mind, flashing in front of his eyes, opened or closed. He knows he knows them, but they make little sense. Nothing more than blurs of color, unfocused shapes, moving so fast in the white that he can barely grasp them. There’s a sound one day too, a voice he can’t remember, but he knows it must be important, because it says that word too.  _ Lotor. _

The one comes back one day. He knows it’s them because the light hits them differently somehow. There’s an air of urgency as they enter this space of his and place  _ things _ in his hands. He frowns, because he knows there’s something there, but he can’t tell what. There must be a noise that he makes then, and the one gasps, and then there’s a series of noises around them.

Perhaps before he would’ve been interested in the other noises, sharp and metallic, quick and beeping, the one’s voice stringing words together. Words that feel intricate and heavy, and that he feels he might’ve liked, before.

He ignores them, though. He focuses on the one noise he made, and the things in his hands, and the knowledge that he frowned, and he remembers what that means.

The one is gone almost as quickly as they came, and they take the things back with them, but they leave him with another word to work through.  _ Tomorrow. _

Tomorrow is not as complicated to understand as that other word-  _ Lotor _ \- especially when the one is back, and he can feel a surge of warmth flowing through his otherwise frozen body at having guessed it correctly. Tomorrow is part of time. Time he doesn’t quite get yet, but he knows.

There’s more stuff dumped in his hands then, and a bright surge of color fills his eyes. Green.  _ Green. _ He- he makes another noise then, and the one responds to it with a word that sounds like a victory shout.  _ Yes! _ That has his body warming further for whatever reason. He latches onto the feeling, and the green. There’s those noises around him again, and this time he tries to follow them too, figure them out.

He can’t, not really. Not in a way he can put into meaning. But he can see the one better now. The hand they put on him that day, and the thing where their fingers move in an almost frantic pace. The ghostly shape of their lips moving around those words that piques his curiosity, begging to be remembered.

The one realizes he’s staring, and he can see their eyes. They seem to be shielded by something, but he knows the color there, too. Brown. The ghost lips of the one move upwards, a smile, he thinks. He wants to touch it. Moves his hand up to do so. And then the blurs are back.

They take the one away, and this time he can tell there’s an argument going on. The barrier between them and his place can’t keep the shouting from reaching him, and he can make at least a couple of the words out. It should make him proud, but they make cold drop heavy in the pit of his stomach instead.  _ Dangerous. Lotor. Quintessence. _

The one doesn’t come tomorrow. Or the other tomorrow. Or the one afterwards.

He shouldn’t mind and tries not to mind. Instead, he works around those words and the other ones that have been coming to his brain in blinding color. He works on the words for the other tomorrows as well. And he works on reconstructing the one’s face. He thinks he knows them from somewhere. From before.

It’s almost impossible to be able to focus on things when they’re nothing but moving shapes and colors against the white of his mind, but the clawing thing at his chest has slowly started to recede, and, with it, the shaking has diminished as well.

He’s not sure how much time has gone by when the one comes back, but at least he’s managed to separate today from tomorrow, and the rest of the words that name the quintants and vargas. Something in his mind nags that he shouldn’t be proud of such a meagre accomplishment, but he ignores it and is proud just the same.

The one walks into the room with stuff in their hands, as usual, and it’s not until they sit down on his bed, and hand him over a couple of toys that he realizes he’s managed to see and name it all. A surprised gasp fills his lungs with the room’s sterile air, and when he looks back up to the one, he sways on the spot.

Their hands go up to his arms, to keep him in place. There’s a word he knows right then on his lips, even when he can tell he’d barely used it before. The word slips with shocking ease now. “Thanks.” It must shock the one too, because they gape at him, and then hurry to move their fingers over their glowing tablet.

The beeping noises return, and there’s a light being flashed on his eyes, and more stuff happening around him. The one moves fast, doing whatever it is they do when in his room, but he’s not paying attention today, because he can now see the one’s face in vivid detail and is fascinated by it.

When the one puts a device on his wrist, he’s looking at their light brown hair, framing their face, messy and spiky. When they poke his arm with something sharp, there’s only the slightest bother, because he can now tell their brown eyes are shielded by glasses of some sort. He doesn’t know what those do, but can imagine they enhance vision perhaps.

The one is talking then, walking around the room where he can now spot a table, chair, and some other uninteresting things. He’s watching them walk around in a little circle, talking fast into a thing wrapped around their slim wrist. The one is small. He’s sitting on the bed, but he can tell he’s taller. But they’re energetic too, and he’s stagnant.

He’s absorbed watching them, and they seem to be excited about him, for whatever reason, and so time flies, and when they leave promising tomorrow, the toys stay back with him.

Once alone in the room, he takes his time to eye his surroundings, tries to name everything, and is pleasantly surprised to find that he can. With most of it at least. For a moment, he considers getting off the bed, but finds his body is not very responsive. He dares not look under the sheets for what he might see.

Instead, he looks at the toys in his lap, head cocked to the side as the shapes slowly take meaning in his mind. There’s an animal, probably a-  _ Yadnae _ . He remembers them from the stories when he was little. A finger touches at the furry muzzle, thoughts however far away, on the image of a smaller him with many books on his arms. More than he could carry. Way too complicated for him to understand. But so precious.

A memory.

When he pulls from it, there are tears clouding his gaze, and he wipes them away hastily. He’s not ashamed of them, but they prevent him from seeing clearly, and he needs to keep on seeing.

One of the toys is a boy wearing clothes he can’t identify, but the colors and fabrics are nice under his touch. The other is a girl with long, purple hair, and he has to fight back a wail when it prods at something in his mind. He locks that thing away, throws the boy and girl as far as his strength allows, and lies back down. The Yadnae, he keeps tight to his chest.

Quintants are much nicer now that he knows words, and things, and can see the room and people that sometimes hover around him. The clearest of them all is still the one, and they only come when he’s alone and after the last of the others has long since left. He doesn't know how many vargas go by between things, but he can imagine it’s not waking hours when the one comes. The word  _ dangerous _ comes to his mind often when he thinks of that.

“Okay, I brought something different today.” The one is talking already when they walk into his room, but there’s something off today. He blinks at them, opens his mouth to voice as much, but doesn’t have the words for it; so he shuts it. The one must see something in his face, though, because their own lights up in amazement. “You can hear me, right?”

Oh, oh. Is that it? He can feel his own face mimicking theirs then, surprised at this new development. He tries a word, any word, to say that he can indeed tell where one word ends and the next starts, and he can understand them. “Yes,” he croaks out, throat dry, and rough from disuse.

Yes, of all the things he could’ve said… he frowns, and shakes his head. It’s all the same, this is still important.

When he looks away from his lap, the one is once again typing on their PADD, and he can make out the things there. Some shapes stir things in his mind- memories of some sort- but others are weird. He doesn’t know those. Not even from before. He looks at the one’s face, frown set in place and teeth nibbling on their lower lip as they go about their usual stuff. Then they look up, and he’s trapped in their gaze. And they smile. It tightens at the corner of their eyes. It’s pretty.

“Back with me?” They ask, and he nods, because it seems the right thing to do, even when he’s not gone anywhere. They seem pleased. The PADD is forgotten on the bed, and something new is pulled onto his lap. A book. “For you.” He looks up to the brown eyes, and the one gives the book a nudge, encouraging.

He looks at it for the longest time, unable to tell what it is that’s written on the cover. It’s black and ridged and his fingers trace the word on the cover on their own. It doesn’t seem a hard word, for it’s short, and not too curvy. He’s not sure how he knows that, but he does, and that quells some of the anxiety bubbling up in his chest at the new item.

“Thanks.” He repeats that one word. The one hums, a pleased sound. He’s afraid of opening the book, of what might be in there, but he does anyway. Whatever there is behind the hardcover, it won’t be worse than the white.

It’s drawings. A house, a boy, no- a man, and another one, trees, and animals. They’re a family. There’s a story there, and- “Yadnae,” he says with a soft chuckle, and looks up at the one. They nod, and there’s something in their eyes that he can’t identify, but it feels happy. They go back to the PADD, but don’t stop looking at him; so he goes back to the book.

The story is simple enough. The Yadnae is lost, and the men go looking for him. He’d found a mate, and that’s why he’d been missing. In the end, they all go back home, and there are Yadnae pups everywhere. It’s a weird little story, and so he looks up, a sound of inquiry in his throat.

“Yeah, yeah…” the one waves a hand in the air. Dismissively, his brain provides a new word. “It’s a dumb story, but there’s only so much I could do with that wolf that you seem to like. There’s nothing on them in the whole of Al- in the whole library.” They keep on talking, but then the words are too quick for him to catch once again. He still watches their lips move, and tries his hardest. It puts a pleasant kind of strain- effort- to his mind, that he’s missed.

“So, I’ll leave it here,” they say at last, once their ramble has died down. He nods. “You read it, or- study it, rather. I won’t be back tomorrow, because I have something, but the day- the quintant afterwards, yes?”

“Something tomorrow. Next quintant yes.” Whatever allowed him to string together so many words, he’s beyond ecstatic. The one’s lips break into a giant smile, and they chuckle.

“Yes, exactly.” And then they’re gone, and he looks back at the book. He’ll study it for the next quintant.

For the next quintants- he’s sure it has to have been a couple phoebs already- that’s all he and the one do. They come with a book, he looks at it, and they share the scant words his brain allows his lips to form.

It’s slowly getting better, he can tell. The words are more and more each time, and slowly the books begin to have them too, and even when he can’t always read them out loud, eventually, he can understand them all. And then the books get harder, and the conversations too.

The one asks about his memories, about his name, about them. He knows they’re familiar to him, and even voices as much in one of their talks, but he can’t tell more than that.

“I don’t think your memory is lost.” They say one quintant, as he goes through what is clearly a cooking book, but that has not one recipe or ingredient he knows. It’s frustrating in a challenging kind of way, when once he finishes, the one will ask about the dish prepared, and see if he can tell sweet from savory apart. If he can remember all the new words in it.

“It’s not?” He puts a piece of paper to mark the page, and closes it to look at them.

“No.” There’s something in their voice, something like concern, or- doubt of some sort. “No, I think you’re not letting it out.” He opens his mouth to reply, but they cut him short. “Not you. The other you. The one from the memories. I think- I think you’re afraid of them, and so you keep them away.”

“Why?” He can use bigger words now, but he’s suddenly wary of the direction this conversation is taking.

“That’s not for me to tell you. You-” they hesitate, and he can’t say he’s ever seen them do so before. They always look confident, and sharp. But there’s that doubt in their eyes again, and maybe fear as well. It pricks at the back of his neck.

_ Dangerous. Lotor. Quintessence. _

“What’s your name?” He asks when there’s nothing but silence around them for a good dobosh. They open their mouth, and close it. Lick their lips, and open it again.

“Katie. Holt.” They say the name slowly and carefully, as if it should stir something within him, then they add, “My friends call me Pidge.” But that doesn’t give him anything to work with either. Nothing beyond the annoying prickling sensation at the nape of his neck, like everything else does. That constant feeling of deja vú that refuses to go away.

“Okay,” he ponders this new information for a moment longer, watches their face as he connects the names with the person in front of him. “What should I call you?”

“I-” His question seems to catch them at a loss, their eyes moving across his face as if searching for something. “Pidge. You can call me Pidge.”

“Okay, Pidge.” He smiles at them, and when nothing else is said, he goes back to the book. There’s two recipes left still, and he wants to tackle them before it’s time for them to go, and him to be left alone until the next quintant brings the usual parade of doctors and nurses to check upon his progress.

There’s been progress indeed, although he’s not sure what he’s been recovering from exactly. He knows in his mind, where there was nothing but white before, there’s life again. That his body, once useless and bound to bed with fever, weakness and tremors, is now healthy, and he can eat on his own, and move around.

He’s not allowed to leave the room just yet, but he is in no rush to do so either. Whatever is behind the white sliding door, where he can spot guards standing watch whenever it’s open, can wait until the time comes.

“I won’t be back tomorrow,” Pidge tells him one day, pulling Lotor from his reading of a marine biology book from this Earth planet they’re from. He enjoys the books Pidge brings him, even when he doesn’t quite understand many of the things in them.

Pidge answers his questions about terms he might not know, species he finds interesting, and any other question that might pop into his brain. He’s long since learned his tiny friend is smart, and even when they do tend to roll their eyes at most of his simplest questions, they always answer in great detail, and encourage his curiosity. Plus, he’s learned a whole new language, and that is reason enough for pride, that he can accept some teasing over his interrogations.

“Have something to do?” He asks, well accustomed now to their random disappearances. He’s not told them that he’s connected the dots between them not coming to visit him and the starlight hair showing up. It might be foolish, but he wants to solve whatever mystery this is on his own. The mystery of him.

“Yeah, you know how it is,” they wave a hand in the air in a nonchalant way he’s learned to be very  _ them _ .

“I can imagine, I think.” He answers with the faintest of smiles and a shrug of his shoulder. He doesn’t, of course, but that seems to be a good enough answer because they laugh, a little sound just for them in this borrowed time of theirs.

They fall into an easy silence where he continues to read and Pidge goes back to whatever it is they’re currently working on in their PADD, fingers flying over it at full speed, as usual. He breaks the quiet a couple of doboshes later with a question. “So, this asian sheepshead wrasse… it’s quite, um, unappealing. Do you eat this thing?”

“God, no.” That makes them laugh again, which in turn puts a smile on his lips. “I mean, I don’t, but I guess people do. Why, want to try it?”

“I don’t think so, no.” He answers after brief consideration. “Asian because it lives near that continent of yours, right?”

“Right.” They smile, and he nods, pleased with himself.

-

He’s not sure what’s the thing that does it, open the dam keeping him from himself, but when it happens, he’s glad to be alone.

It’s not pretty, the feeling of thousands of years of memories flooding his head at once. The pain and desperation that followed him almost since birth. The disapproval from his father, the absence of his mother. Voices and faces pile up behind his tight-shut eyelids, tears streaming down his cheeks at the sudden assault to his senses. There’s despair, abandon, struggle, sacrifice, a glimmer of hope constantly snatched before it managed to fully bloom. It all hits at his chest, robbing him of breath and stability, and he finds himself curling on himself on the floor by the bed.

The voices won’t stop. They scream and demand, degrade and insult. He’s aware of lesser ones, amicable, perhaps even friendly, but they’re obscured by the mass of pain pointing at him as the guilty one. The perpetrator. His hands try in vain to cover his ears. The voices are not really there, he knows that. His fingers thread up into his hair, and pull until the sharp pain on his scalp is strong enough to absorb some of the loudest ones.

He’s not sure how long it goes by like that, his whole life flashing before his eyes, but it’s long enough he starts to wonder if this is the moment he finally dies.

His throat is raw once again, but he refuses to scream and bring the doctors into the room. There’s the iron taste of blood filling his mouth, but he’s not sure where it’s coming from. Maybe he bit his lips, maybe it was his tongue. He can’t care.

The arena shows up with tremors down his spine, and his father’s eyes stay impassive in front of him as he relives every fight and whipping he’s even been put through. Because he was not good enough, big enough, purple enough. He’s never been enough in the eyes of the Emperor.

By the time he catches up with Voltron, the Princess, and his ultimate demise, he’s gasping for air, claws clutching at his chest through the flimsy hospital gown, and everything around him is far too bright. The colors too vibrant and the floor impossibly hard under him. His body is constricting, and even the room is closing in on him.

That’s how Pidge finds him, huddled on the floor, eyes staring into the nothing ahead. He thinks it’s probably not dissimilar from the time before.

“What?” He must’ve talked without realizing, because they’re kneeling in front of him then, asking for him to repeat his words.

“Who are you?” There’s venom laced in his words, something that was not there last they talked, and Pidge flinches in on themselves.

“You don’t recognize me?” Pidge asks, concern evident in their voice, but doesn’t answer.

“Who am I?” He asks then, looking up to take in their appearance for the third time as if it were the first.

Their face is contorted in a mixture of pain, worry and fear, and he finds it fitting. They’re smart, and he’s sure they’ve connected the dots and are showing their true colors. At last.

“I said, who am I?!” He shouts out the next question, watching with ashen victory how they cower away, until their back hits the cabinets against the wall.

“L- Lotor. You’re prince Lotor.” Their voice is small, and guilt digs its way into Lotor’s chest, but he’s too angry to pay mind to it. He lets out a shuddering breath, and stands.

“I’m the  _ Emperor _ .” Lotor roars to the scared paladin, and turns to make for the door.

“Wait- wait, Lotor!” Pidge steps between him and the only exit of this pretense they’ve been keeping him in. To their credit, they barely flinch when he takes a step forward, and another, crowding their little frame, a snarl already curling his lips in a show of fangs. “Please,” they beg, hands up in a show of peace, although they don’t seem to know what they’re begging for.

“Move away paladin, and you’ll get to keep your head on your shoulders.” He snarls, but they don’t budge. One of his fists connects with the door, and they jump on the spot, eyes closing for a moment, but still refusing to move.

“Please,” their voice is smaller, and a hand moves up, trembling, and touches at his shoulder. He shakes with the touch, brows furrowed, face twisting in pain and confusion, jaw so tightly shut it strains down his neck.

That’s when the door slides open, and the rest of the paladins and a couple of Galra find them, the blow to the door probably alerting the guards on the other side. As the place fills with shouts for Pidge to run, for him to step away, and the group makes their way towards them, the little paladin reaches back to close the door between the two of them and the rest. Then, they take a sharp intake of air, brown eyes locked on Lotor’s, and turn around to tinker with the locking panel.

“It’s jammed,” they say, their back still to Lotor. He can’t tell if they’re brave or just stupid. Except he knows they’re not stupid. “It’ll take them at least fifteen doboshes to open it.” When they turn, fear has swept into their eyes again, but their chin is up, braving it. Lotor can respect that. “Let’s talk.”

“Talk!” He can’t stop the way his voice rises and the sole word makes his throat burn. And then the words trapped in his head pour out. “You want to talk now, but how about in the past, what- how many phoebs has it been? How about then, when you knew exactly who I was and played the part of the cute little doctor? What happened then? Had lost your memory as well, or were you too busy playing with your own lab rat to tell me my own name?” He barely stops to draw breath, he doesn’t move from his position, caging the paladin against the shut door.

From the other side, he can hear the rest growing more and more worried by the tick. He could smell their fear, and thrives on it, because at least that’s familiar.

“What about the moment when you and your friends decided to chase me back to the Galra, and the witch? Weren’t too interested in talking then, were you?” He steps closer, until Pidge is a straight line against the door. Lotor leans down to look straight into her wide brown eyes. His next words are barely a whisper. “How about when you left me to die in the nothingness?”

“Lotor, I-” They try, but whatever it is they’re going to say, he stops with another blow to the door, a cry that’s been trapped in his throat for stars know how long filling the little room. He walks back, unable to stop the memories running through his mind, and falls on the bed, defeated before the fight even started.

A thick silence falls around them, and Lotor’s acutely aware of Pidge’s laboured breathing and raised heartbeat. “Talk, then, paladin.” He doesn’t bother to look at them. If there was any battle left in his body, it’s left him already, so the least he can do is listen to them until their friends barge into the room and end his long overdue pathetic existence.

“Pidge. My friends call me Pidge.”

-

“What’s that fabulous new contraption you’re working on now? The yellow one won’t shut up about it.” Lotor asks, barely looking up from his book as he walks into Pidge’s lab. He’s heard they were back from Earth, and decided he could very well spare a couple doboshes to see them.

“And hello to you, too.” Their answer is dry, a hand waved in the air in his general direction, their head not coming up from where they’re doing stars know what with what looks exactly like a pile of trash. Lotor knows it will turn out magnificent just the same.

He continues to read as Pidge talks in circles around him about this and that, and how hard it was to find whatever piece it was they were needing, and how lucky it was to happen across something similar enough on their last trip to Earth to visit their parents. He hums here and there and adds a correction into the math on their gleaming board, to which they react with a grumble. Something about him being a smartass that Lotor decides to ignore responding to, knowing him smiling will get Pidge all the more riled up.

“Okay, I can’t work with you touching my stuff.” At last they toss their hands up in the air, and reach for Lotor’s book, snatching it from him. He can’t help but to chuckle at them needing to stand on their toes to do so. “What are you reading today, your majesty? Moby Dick, who even gave you this?”

“Ah, it was the black paladin.” He answers with an easy smile, letting them flip through the book. “I find that I quite like it, even if the language is a bit different from what you used to give me to read.”

They start walking without really realising, a thing they’ve been doing ever since Lotor gained out-of-the-room permissions. They never have a goal, a place to go to, but that only makes it all the better. It’s nice to fall into conversation with Pidge, and see where their feet take them as they become too engrossed in whichever topic they chose. They have definitely found themselves in the weirdest of places, all around the castle and the whole of New Altea. He can’t say he minds it.

“Shiro  _ would _ recommend this, he’s all teacher mode most of the time.” Pidge comments, tease visible in their voice. Lotor enjoys the way they seem to always have something to mock their friends with. He’s found himself intrigued by the things they say about him, if any. Not that he’d ask, that would be giving them more ammo to work with. “Next he’ll tell you to read To kill a Mockingbird.”

“Oh, he did mention that one, yes.” Lotor answers, wondering if that was the book Takashi sent to his PADD or not. 

“Oh my God, Lotor, do not read that book, I beg of you!” Pidge groans loudly, and he laughs at their antics.

After that, time blurs as it often does when he’s with them, though the white never returns. They talk, but he’s only vaguely aware of doing so. They walk, but time and space seem to be put on hold as they do so, in an unique kind of way that only seems to happen around the two of them. Eventually they’ll have to stop, and figure out their way back. He can’t say he minds that either. And he’ll be ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments feed me, long, short, keyboard smashes, emojis, your choice!
> 
> Come chat with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ragdollrory).


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